cell transplant

nls at SAVVY.COM (Nassau Library System) asks:
> Can anyone,
> provide me with any information on islet cell transplant as a treatment
> for diabetics?
>> much appreciated.
> Ana < nls at savvy.com >
>
Ana,
Islet cell transplants have been tried, but they are attacked by
the immune system. Immunosuppression can be used, but that has
serious problems. To get around this problem, microencapsulated
islet cells have been developed. These capsules or hollow fibers let
small molecules like glucose in and small proteins like insulin out
but block passage of large proteins like antibodies. This looks very
promising, because the cells respond like a normal islet to glucose
and the technology to do this type of therapy is currently available.
See Lacy et al., Science 254:1782 for a good reference to start from.
Dennis
"Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds.
Biochemistry is the study of carbon compounds that crawl."-Mike Adams
"And Cell Biology is the study of how carbon compounds crawl
(and other neat things)" -DG